Early on in Steve Kennedy’s career as an education administrator, staff shortages pushed him into a sixth-grade woodshop class as a long-term substitute. It wasn’t exactly a win-win situation -- certainly not for any future woodworkers in the San Diego area middle school class.

After all, what did Kennedy, then an assistant principal, know about wood working?

“I think I had the safeties on for the first three or four months of the class,” the 51-year-old Kennedy said with a laugh in his office at the Menifee Union School District headquarters. “I was deathly afraid that somebody would get hurt.”

Thankfully, nobody did.

Nearly 20 years later, Kennedy is preparing to take his seat as Menifee Union’s new superintendent.

Linda Callaway, who served in the post for seven years, presided over her final board meeting last week. She's handing the reins over to Kennedy on April 1, at a time of continuing budget challenges.

Nonetheless, the district’s Academic Performance Index score has improved nine years straight -- from 749 to 848 -- and Kennedy expects to continue steering the ship in a positive direction amid a whole new slew of changes on the horizon.

“Our policy has always been about students first and (my tenure) will be a continuation of that,” said Kennedy, who was promoted to the top job after more than five years as assistant superintendent of personnel with the district. “I think one of the pieces I bring is I really appreciate attitude and heart," he said, adding that the teachers and support workers at the campuses "really have done an amazing job.

“We continue to go up in terms of academic achievement and that’s due to the boots we have on the ground.”

Kennedy got his start in the district as a principal at Menifee Elementary School in 2005 after completing undergraduate work at San Diego State and his master's at National University. He's now working to complete his doctorate in educational leadership through Argosy University, which should serve him well he assumes the top leadership post in the district.

He's already gained valuable leadership experience as he moved up in his career and also while serving as the district’s lead negotiator with its unions during the budget crisis.

“A point of interest for me is to develop really strong relationships with our people so they know that decisions having to be made dealing with fiscal austerity are not personal,” Kennedy said. “They are about keeping our organization afloat and putting us into a position to survive during the most austere portions of the last few years.”

The good news, Kennedy said, is those days appear to be coming to a close for a district that recently saw its enrollment finally eclipse 9,000 after years of stunted growth.

In addition to joining the rest of the state’s districts prepping to implement new standards in 2014-15, Menifee Union’s long-term goals include construction of an elementary campus on land recently acquired at Pat and Slough Roads in Winchester, as well as eventually assuming control of Paloma Valley High School and becoming a unified district that serves students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Down the road even further, Menifee Union has plans to move out of its portables off Newport and Menifee roads to the land it owns across the street from City Hall on Haun Road.

After several years watching Kennedy move up the ranks with the district -- and especially in the last several months after Kennedy was chosen to succeed Callaway -- the Menifee Union’s governing board is confident that it picked the right person as the district’s new CEO when it approved Kennedy at a salary of $165,000 last fall.

“In the last few transitional months, he has proven to me that we made the correct choice as he has continued with his current responsibilities while making time to attend various meetings, conferences and networking opportunities both with Dr. Callaway and on his own,” Trustee Jerry Bowman said. “He has truly made this transition as smooth as possible. It will be a big adjustment moving forward without someone as dedicated and qualified as Dr. Callaway, but I think Menifee is in very good hands with Steve Kennedy.”